Step 19: Post Installation tasks

Issue 1 – SSO access for admins

19.1: Give permissions to admin users for access to SSO. Log into the web client as the administrator account.

19.2: Select Administration and then expand Single Sign-On. Select Users and Groups and select the groups tab. From here you can select Administrators

19.3: Select Add member

19.4: Select the required domain from the drop down menu

19.5: Also for Users and Groups select Show Groups First from that drop down. Add the name of the group you want to add and search. Select the group name and click Add then click Ok.

19.6: The group will now appear under the adminstrators of SSO and means that they have rights to change the SSO password if needed. I have seen in the past the SSO password expiring and the domain accounts didn’t have administrator access. Nightmare. As I’m using a multi-site SSO this process will need to be followed on both vCenter servers.

Issue 2 – HA failing on recently updated cluster

19.7: This may not be an issue in most environments but I ran into this problem where HA kept trying to enable on a two host cluster but continually failed.

19.8: It put the Configuring vSphere HA task into a look. It also showed other issues on the Summary tab to say that vCenter was unable to find a master vSphere HA agent in the cluster and that vSphere HA host monitoring was disabled.

19.9: To stop the flopping of HA tasks I disabled vSphere HA. Next I migrated all VMs off of the ESXi host and put it into maintenance mode. Next I right-clicked and selected Remove from the menu

19.10: As I don’t have any specific vApps that I care about I selected yes to the following

19.11: Following its removal from vCenter I logged on via putty to the host as I don’t have ILO access to the server. From here I ran the following commands to restart the ESX host agent.

/etc/init.d/hostd restart
/etc/init.d/vpxa restart

19.12: Next step I followed was to re-add the ESXi host by right-clicking the cluster name and select Add Host

19.13: Add the details of the host and the admin account details. Click next.

19.14: Click Yes on the certificate

19.15: Click Next on the host summary

19.16: Click Next on the licensing

19.17: Enable lockdown mode if you wish, otherwise click Next

19.18: Leave the resource pool settings as default and click Next

19.19: Click Finish on the Ready to Complete screen

19.20: Exit the host out of maintenance mode.

19.21: One problem I had here is that the ESX host would stop responding each time I tried to vMotion a VM onto it. I decided to reboot the host just to have a clean base.

Repeat the above steps on the remaining ESXi host.

After the reboot of both hosts in the cluster I re-enabled HA and it took effect this time.

Issue 3 – SRM configuration

19.22: Log into SRM via vCenter. Right-click on the local site and select Configure Connection

19.23: Verify the remote site settings and click Next

19.24: Enter the credentials to authenticate to the site and click Next

19.25: You will be prompted for a certificate installation. Install the cert and click Ok. You will then be taken back to the login prompt again to sign in. Once the connection has been completed you’ll see the below

19.26: Next you’ll need to ensure that the Array Manager connections are working. Click on Array Managers and select the first SiteRecovery. Next select the SRAs tab and click Rescan SRAs. This can take a few minutes

19.27: Once it’s completed you want to see that the status is Ok and the version is the one installed during the upgrade process. You may see an error on the actual array. This is most likely a configuration error and can be cause by the change in the certificate. Select the array, right-click and select Edit Array Manager

19.28: Verify the connection SRA and click Next

19.29: Enter the details of an admin account on the XIV environment, or whatever storage array your SRA relates to and click Next

19.30: The array manager will now scan through and if there are no issues the connection will be successful. Click Finish to complete.

19.31: I would advise also that you go through each of your Protection Groups and Recovery Plans to ensure there are no warnings or alerts

Cleanup 1: Remove Snapshots from vCenter servers

19.32: Go to the vCenter server in vSphere client. Right-click on the VM and select Snapshot -> Snapshot Manager. Select the snapshot that was taken before the process began and select Delete. This will remove the snapshot and clean up the environment.